Cyclists airlifted from Mission Trails park

John Gibbins

A man was airlifted from a remote section of Mission Trails Regional Park after he flipped his mountain bike while riding with his two nephews. They were able to call with a cell phone and after some initial confusion about their location, San Diego Fire Copter 2 was able to airlift Ernesto Martinez and his two nephews and their three bicycles out of the area and back to Mast Blvd. where he was transferred to an ambulance and taken to the hospital.

A man was airlifted from a remote section of Mission Trails Regional Park after he flipped his mountain bike while riding with his two nephews. They were able to call with a cell phone and after some initial confusion about their location, San Diego Fire Copter 2 was able to airlift Ernesto Martinez and his two nephews and their three bicycles out of the area and back to Mast Blvd. where he was transferred to an ambulance and taken to the hospital. (John Gibbins)

A San Diego rescue helicopter airlifted an injured man, his teenage nephew bicycling companion, and their two bikes from Mission Trails Regional Park Wednesday afternoon.

The man and his 13-year-old nephew used a cellphone to call 911 at 11:34 a.m. after the uncle took a spill from his mountain bike and hurt his shoulder, said Battalion Chief Dan Froelich of the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department.

Froelich said the pair had set off from a parking lot at Mast Boulevard at state Route 52 in Santee, but didn’t know where they were along the hilly, winding park trails.

It took a fire rescue helicopter crew half an hour to find them about two miles north of the freeway, waiting in temperatures of about 90 degrees, Froelich said. The uncle, nephew and bicycles were loaded into the copter and taken to a parking lot where an ambulance was waiting.

A second nephew who had been riding ahead of the others had already returned to the lot and was waiting for them, Froelich said.